9. 6. 2023 | PR, Strengthening Societal Resilience and Countering Foreign Perpetrated Disinformation in 6 Western Balkans Countries
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Global experts and practitioners increasingly warn that the phenomenon of disinformation should be viewed through a security lens. Malignant actors recognize and abuse the capacity of disinformation to undermine democratic processes and practices, erode the trust of the population in public institutions, and create tears in the social fabric of societies. While every country in the world faces the challenge of disinformation, Western Balkans is among those regions that have proven particularly vulnerable and often a target for foreign actors. 74% of Western Balkan citizens consider disinformation a security threat.
The Project Strengthening Societal Resilience and Countering Foreign Perpetrated Disinformation organized a capacity-building training in Portorož on 6-8 June for representatives of Western Balkan governments, media and civil society to foster joint work on countering this threat.
About forty participants took part in the two-and-a-half day long training dedicated to exploring the building blocks of comprehensive and holistic national defence mechanisms in countering disinformation. Renowned experts from across Europe and the US taught the participants how to verify information, detect and react to disinformation, and establish a whole-of-society response model. Progressing from theory to practice, participants used their new knowledge and tools during practical exercises and tailor-made simulations of disinformation event scenarios.
The objective of the Project is to assist the Western Balkan partners to create national response mechanisms to counter foreign-perpetrated disinformation. The training provided space for national and regional cross-sectoral working group discussions that will feed into national recommendations and other activities developed within the Project.
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
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31. 5. 2023 | PR, Strengthening Societal Resilience and Countering Foreign Perpetrated Disinformation in 6 Western Balkans Countries
Disinformation being false information deliberately spread to deceive people or secure economic or political gain, is becoming more dangerous by the year. 83% of Europeans believe disinformation presents a problem for democracy. They believe different groups of society should take responsibility to counter them. Among them are journalists, national authorities, and citizens (Euronews). Representatives of those groups and sectors (media, governments, and civil society organisations) from 6 Western Balkan countries will meet in Portorož for capacity-building training from the 6th to the 8th of June 2023.
The training will build upon the theoretical foundations participants gained at the last conference in November 2022 in Bled. The training titled ‘Detect & React’ will equip participants with tools to timely and effectively verify information, detect disinformation, and potentially debunk them.
It is organised in the scope of the project “Strengthening societal resilience and countering foreign perpetrated disinformation in 6 Western Balkans countries”, which was launched in 2020. It aims to enhance resilience and boost regional cooperation against disinformation with a whole-of-society approach, which is the distinguishing feature of the project. At this training, we will address another critical dimension: the collaboration of different levels of governance, meaning local, national, and regional, and get an even broader and more holistic overview of this dangerous phenomenon. Speakers from across Europe and wider will join us and share their expertise.
All our work should long-term lead to establishing national mechanisms for countering disinformation in each country (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia).
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
26. 3. 2023 | European Digital Diplomacy Exchange, PR, Strategic Communication
The rapid development of digital communication technology impacts our lives in myriad ways. It does not seem so far ago when we were faxing long press releases to journalists to where we are now when 280 characters can do the same job, occasionally with an even more significant impact. Digital communications and social media are transforming pillars of a democratic society. It is more important than ever for governments to understand their responsibilities and roles in ensuring that their institutions are prepared to adapt and adopt new practices to cement their place within this new digital information economy.
That is why representatives from 19 countries convened to ensure that they, together, are ready to rise to any and all resulting challenges. The participants from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine joined us in Portorož for 4-day long training from March 21st to 24th within the scope of European Digital Diplomacy Exchange project.
The training titled »Turning Practice into Strategy, Structures, and Systems” focused on retrieving already obtained digital communication skills, as well as polishing and advancing them. Various international speakers coming from the US State Department, the Slovenian government, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NATO spoke to us about digital rhetoric, marketing public affairs, nation branding, the importance of the audience approach as well as social listening and performance analysis. Crisis communication was also addressed, as well as how to counter disinformation and design digital strategies and ways of cooperation within governments, ministries and embassies.
There were quite a few practical exercises during the training, through which participants put their theoretical knowledge into practice – by preparing a digital strategy that will be of help when establishing a national digital strategy. A very important part of the training was time to connect and network, and the participants made the most of it.
The project is a result of cooperation between the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Ljubljana, and the Centre for European Perspective.
The project is partially financed by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia in the scope of the program activities of international development cooperation.
13. 3. 2023 | European Digital Diplomacy Exchange, PR, Strategic Communication
More than ever, the unstable and uncertain times call for effective and trustworthy communication from governments and institutions. They are under enormous pressure to introduce and communicate policy initiatives under extraordinary circumstances while simultaneously competing with the flooding of misinformation and disinformation. Digital capabilities and strategic thinking have undoubtedly become the core of governments’ communications and public affairs operations.
Once again, European Digital Diplomacy Exchange will gather government communicators for a 4-day training, where they will be polishing their digital communication competencies. Participants from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine will join us in Portorož from 21 to 24 March.
The theme of this training will be “Turning Practice into Strategy, Structures, and Systems.” With the focus on returning participants, we will be shifting our attention to how participants can translate the skills they have developed during previous workshops into policies, protocols, and procedures that will foster institutional systems that better enable digital strategic communications practices. Participants will learn from experts in this field and participate in practical exercises that will provide tangible, workable solutions to their home ministries.
The project is a result of cooperation between the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Ljubljana, and the Centre for European Perspective.
The project is partially financed by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia in the scope of the program activities of international development cooperation.
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25. 11. 2022 | PR, Strengthening Societal Resilience and Countering Foreign Perpetrated Disinformation in 6 Western Balkans Countries
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Once again, government communicators, journalists and members of civil society from Western Balkan countries gathered to address the challenge of disinformation.
The disruptive nature of disinformation requires a whole-of-society approach and cooperation among different sectors. All too often, members of government, journalists and civil society members work separately from each other, yet striving towards the same goal, which is to protect democratic institutions and diminish the space for disinformation.
It is for this reason that CEP initiated a project ‘Strengthening societal resilience and countering foreign perpetrated disinformation in six Western Balkan countries’. In the scope of the project, a conference took place in Bled from 22 to 24 November 2022.
The conference was attended by 37 participants from Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). All of the participants deal with the challenge of disinformation daily – whether as government communicators, fact-checkers or journalists.
The conference was divided into two parts – in the first part, several discussions with the aim of understanding disinformation, why it is done and how it impacts our societies were held. At the second part of the conference, participants started working on their ‘Country disinformation reports’, where they applied the insights gained from the first part. This is not the last conference in the scope of the project. In the next editions, the participants will continue writing reports on disinformation and expand them with sections on tools and tactics to counter and prevent disinformation, as well as sections on coordination necessary among different sectors.
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
More about the activities in the gallery below.
19. 11. 2022 | PR, Strengthening Societal Resilience and Countering Foreign Perpetrated Disinformation in 6 Western Balkans Countries
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Once again, stakeholders involved in the co-creation of the information environment from 6 Western Balkans countries are meeting at the Conference on countering disinformation which will take place next week, from the 22nd to the 24th of November 2022, in Bled, Slovenia. It will bring together government, civil society, and media from 6 Western Balkans countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia).
The conference is organised in the scope of the project “Strengthening societal resilience and countering foreign perpetrated disinformation in 6 Western Balkans countries”, which was launched in 2020. This conference is going to focus on identifying and understanding disinformation and its impact.
The speakers from across Europe and wider will join us and share their expertise with participants about the most recent developments in the field.
The distinguishing feature of the project is the whole-of-society approach, connecting governments, civil society, and media in each country and across all 6 Western Balkans countries. This collaboration is of great importance when addressing such a complex issue as disinformation and enhancing resilience to external influences. Other core activities of the projects are providing capacity building to governments in Western Balkans and helping to create a national mechanism for countering disinformation in each country, specialized trainings for stakeholders, and creation of a regional platform to exchange information.
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
